Bygone Boy
by Call-me-Kerfuffle
Summary: At night, he fights against the fierce craving for silence and blackness that comes clawing its way into his brain. He wonders when it will eventually consume him.
1. Chapter 1

They know Sinbad has his enemies, so Ja'far carefully tries to restrict only trading vessels to the harbour.

Every document that passes through the palace is sure to visit his hands, cautiously studied and analysed. Every suspicious fisherman's tale from the taverns or docks is fed to him by his spies, through whispered conversations behind locked doors, and small coded notes that he shreds into the palace fires.

Very few know of the midnight dealings in King Sinbad's court. Ja'far trains by lamplight only, because most of him is still ashamed of the boy who has never truly left his memory**_, struggling to squeeze through the narrow space between the roof and balcony, fingers slipping against cool marble as his legs dangle over nothing_****. ****_Quietly now. Remember what you must do_**_._

Often he spends most of the night working himself into a frenzy, blades stabbing viciously through the sacks he lines against the courtyard walls, wires whipping in a silent fury, until his fingers ache from the effort and he leans against a pillar watching the sun rise. By morning, he is Ja'far again, advisor to the King, and there are papers to sign and guests to welcome, balmy mornings and steamy afternoons under a fierce blue sky, golden evenings breathing in the scent of jasmine from the garden.

At night, he fights against the fierce craving for silence and blackness that comes clawing its way into his brain, **_it's so very dark, only the pale outline of his feet visible before him as he slips through an open door, silk curtains billowing in the humid breeze, onto a cold floor. Sweat trickles slowly down the back of his neck_**_._

He wonders when it will eventually consume him.


	2. Chapter 2

Sinbad hardly needs to be protected in his own country, but Ja'far is paranoid, and has been hearing whisperings of a plot to unrest the local merchants, so he discreetly offers to help Masrur accompany the king to the blacksmith, in the hope of more small coded messages. The morning is clear and cool as the group winds its way along a narrow embankment of houses towards the centre of the city. Sinbad chats to the children who skip alongside him, pressing hard candies into their sticky hands as they clasp at his cloak, **_small hands that clasp at the wires cutting into his forearms. Remember the task. Quietly now, creeping across a thick carpet towards the man wrapped in a jumble of carelessly twisted sheets. His stomach turns again. Don't be sick. Be quiet._**

The market is teeming by the time they turn through a side street, swathes of coloured fabric draped over wooden stalls, crates of deep-sea fish, a woman clattering with a string of pearls and foreign silver jewellery. A crowd gathers around a man unpacking delicate objects of blown glass and wooden masks, bumping baskets, jostling through sacks of grain and exotic fruit. Ja'far feels both exhilarated, and uneasy surrounded by the hive of activity, and slows, shading his eyes against the sun**.****_ Standing over the man and watching as his breaths matched his own. In, out. In, out._**

It happens within an instant.

There is a glint of metal upon a roof-top overlooking the square and he rushes to push aside a couple beside him, reaching for the back of Sinbad's tunic, yanking him to the ground as a dagger whistles through the air above their heads and the market erupts into chaos.

Sinbad scrabbles below him as the people shriek and stumble from the blade buried in the ground at the King's torso, Masrur whirling about, cursing and struggling to push past the masses that now flee from the market.

The would-be assassin hurls another dagger that catches on a stall and buries itself in the wood, then leaps towards the King, surging across the market at charging run.

Ja'far barely manages to dart forward to meet the man, staggering under the heavy crash of the curved sword against his daggers. **_The blades feel bulky as he slips them from his sleeves; he fumbles as one slips in his sweaty balm._**

The man twists, kicking Ja'far full in the stomach before darting behind a stall as he fights to catch his breath. There is nothing between the assassin and the King now; Ja'far wrenches himself from the ground and pivots as Sinbad dodges a blow, reaching for his absent blade as the heavy sword tip nicks his chest…

Ja'far's vision is filled with red.

**_He raises the daggers above the man's figure, and tries not to see the way the chest rises and falls with the ease of a gentle slumber. Remember now. Step quietly, kill swiftly. That is the way of our order. _**

**_His master appraises him with bloodshot eyes. None suspects a child. They have burnt and torn years of training into his skin, so that when the boy feels the scars on his legs alone at night he also feels the terror that drives him from failing. Better to die than to fail his master._**

He's struggling to breathe, the world spinning as Sinbad's blood drips onto the stones.

**_To take a life should mean nothing to you. _**

The daggers spin in his hands, drifting.

**_I raised you to be empty. I raised you to be alone._**

Drifting from his fingers.

**_I raised you to be a murderer_**_._


	3. Chapter 3

…

**_The sheets around the man are a brilliant scarlet. How pretty, thinks the boy. Like a sunrise. He has never seen a colour so bright._**

**_He manages to find the balcony again before he retches over the side. He does not bother to clean his knives._**

**_"Welcome", the shadows laugh. Welcome Ja'far._**

**_Ja'far._**

_"_Ja'far!"

Masrur is mopping at Sinbad's chest, where the sword has left a nasty gash, and holds his hand out patiently towards Ja'far.

"Your robe."

What?

"A cloth, anything will do."

Sinbad gives his Generals a shaky smile, and pats at Masrur's arm. He's saying something Ja'far can't quite hear, because he is staring his daggers buried in the assassin's back, and the world has gone foggy again.

**_He's 7 years old, and has just murdered his first man, and is terrified of himself._**

He's 19 years old, and has just killed on Sindarian soil, and can't tear his eyes away at the man bleeding at Sinbad's feet.

The group manages to make its way back to the palace without any enormous amount of fuss, but when Pisti flies down the palace stairs to meet them white faced and hiccupping, the shock kicks in and Sinbad is smothered with bandages and generals and demands some harsh liquor that no one has the strength to refuse. Ja'far knows he should be joining the frantic discussion, describing the man's movements, his dress, where did he come from, who had sent him? Was he acting alone? But instead he drifts away down the corridor towards his chambers, and no one seems to notice when he quietly shuts the door. He stares at his fingers, where dried blood is caught under the nails.

**_Ja'far. Well done Ja'far._**

He struggles to control his breathing, in and out, distant now, as he strips of the stained robes and his daggers and shoves the entire bloody bundle under his chair and sinks onto the floor beside it.

Someone close by is sobbing.

He should probably see to that.

…

He doesn't move.

**_He can't move, held down by two cloaked teachers as they press him into the wooden floor._**

**_The Master regards the scene from where he is taking his breakfast, carefully peeling an orange._**

**_"Why did you go outside?"_**

**_Ja'far's world is so dark. But a window had been left open, and for a brief, endless time on the roof he had stared wonderingly at the blue moon skimming the sand dunes._**

**_He remains mute._**

**_The Master does not play games, so he inclines his head and suddenly the hands on Ja'far become vices as the rags are stripped from his legs._**

**_He is struggling as one of the men draws his blade, and pauses only to glance towards the Master in an unasked question._**

**_ The answer hangs in the Jafar's desperate silence._**

**_"…Something he won't forget so easily."_**

**_He dimly remembers the words later, staring at the great stipes of red torn down his legs._**


End file.
